We’re heading towards the end of “term” here and so finishing off odds and sods of chapters and projects. We’re away next week and have mostly Xmas stuff planned for after that, so finishing up for fresh new year starts is in order. I need to make some lists so we do most of the stuff we have planned. Must do more Xmas shopping too!

Friday they mostly did their art projects i think; Maddy was writing far more confidently than i’d seen for a while (i think a little a day might be paying off in overcoming whatever anxiety had occurred) and Fran was happily investigating Monet. She made a good start on written work and then set about practising some stitching to do her Monet cross stitch. Amelie spent ages working on some sewing too and did a very nice job. Think after that Max came home and then went off to his dad’s on his new baby… i mean motorbike… and then we were into the dancing rush. Came home for late tea and they watched Children in Need with me for a while. I howled, they rolled their eyes, although Fran did come over to console me Saturday we did KYT, some of us dashed into town to get Fran’s glasses reset to having the lenses pointing in the same direction instead of one up and one down and then we all went up to my folks house for a weekend with them, my sister and co and my brother’s girlfriend. Stopped off at my Nana’s on the way home for a gossip. Fran also had a go on my mums full size cello – she could play it fine, although it is too big but it did make me realise how much she has outgrown her half. Must get down to Exeter to try out a potential “new” one

Favourite 2 conversations of the week were Amelie saying, “i thought only lady animals were mammal because boy animals don’t feed their babies milk?” (bless) and Fran having a conversation with me about us being over 70% water, to which i said that you could squash the actual matter of the entire human race into the size of a sugar cube. I told her it would be incredibly heavy though, far too heave for anyone to pick up. “That wouldn’t matter,” she said “there would be no one left to pick it up anyway.” Fair point!

Monday was easy; Fran worked on some rotational symmetry using some Montessori materials, did some more Monet, music and some reading, Maddy did lots of reading (having got herself into a pickle of immense proportions over the name of a spoon) and Amelie read, did some EC and some really lovely music. She likes violin so much more now. Josie was impressing me with writing a list to Santa, copying out beautifully and knowing far more letter sounds than i had given her credit for. Really quite impressive. After that, Zoe turned up (on the dot of 11, i swear she was hiding around the corner!) and my lot had prepared the dining room so it was clean and had art materials out on the table. They spent probably 2 hours drawing, using books to help them, then had lunch, then did some Fimo and some craft (Maddy was showing them how to make Pudsey puppets and cookie trays) and then finished off with a Victorian game in full costume which assured me that Fran has learned something about that period during all her reading.

I took 3 of them to dancing, collected Max, came home, we cooked, Max went out shopping and took the big three to gym and i sat at home and worked hard on the site. Christmas is upon us but at least we are properly staffed up this year so can cope; i think we are as busy, if not slightly busier, than last year but the patterns are very different and the impact on our home life is entirely different. It doesn’t feel like we are actually living through a kind of mad hell anyway